A Composer’s Dream: Housing for ‘Nice’ People

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Mitch Leigh, at his office in Manhattan, is planning a sprawling development in central New Jersey intended for artists, and also, he insists, for “nice” people.CreditCreditSasha Maslov for The New York Times

In recent weeks, an older man with a white beard and a playful smile may have popped up on your television set, a jaunty little tune playing in the background. It is a commercial for a real estate development, and he hopes you will want to buy what he’s selling, but he makes a most unusual pitch.

“My name is Mitch Leigh; I’m a dreamer,” the man says. “If you’re interested in a shop, restaurant, office, apartments, town homes — or whatever! — and you are a really nice person, please contact me at jacksontwentyone.com and share my dream.”

“If you’re not a nice person,” he concludes, “please don’t call.”

This commercial, it seems, has left some viewers scratching their heads.

“Is this some kind of cult?” one person asked in an online forum.

“Does the Jackson family have a whole new, larger singing group?” another chipped in.

Another asked simply, “Is Jackson Twenty-One a scam?”

It is not. Jackson Twenty-One is a plan long in development for an entirely new village of sorts in central New Jersey, with apartments and stores, a hotel and an Imax movie theater, surrounded by hundreds of acres of green space. It will have an eye toward creating a community for artists, and also, the developer insists, toward “nice” people. All in all, the proposal and its packaging are as idealistic, ambitious and delightfully unusual as the man behind it, the Tony Award-winning composer of “Man of La Mancha,” and the white-haired man from the commercials, Mr. Leigh.

“When you think of Mitch Leigh as a businessman, remember he’s also a composer,” said Mr. Leigh, 84, whose past business ventures include a chain of movie theaters, writing commercial jingles and developing real estate. “And when you think of Mitch Leigh as a composer,” he continued, “remember he’s also a businessman.”

The idea for Jackson Twenty-One began many years ago, Mr. Leigh said, as he watched artists being priced out of one neighborhood after the next that they themselves had made desirable. But over time, his concept accumulated accessories, like more housing, movie theaters, maybe even a Chelsea Piers-like sports complex.

The land, however, came much earlier, from “La Mancha.”

Now a musical theater mainstay, “Man of La Mancha” premiered in 1965 and was by no means an obvious commercial success. It is a musical set in a prison during the Spanish Inquisition.

“ ‘La Mancha’ was a gift from me to me,” said Mr. Leigh, who studied music at Yale University with the composer Paul Hindemith. “I never thought for a minute it was going to be a hit.”

Assuming the freedom of a flop, Mr. Leigh and his colleagues wrote it exactly as they pleased. Its theme song (“Dreeeeam the impossible dreeeeeeam!”) became a Broadway classic, as did the play. Its first run lasted for 2,328 performances, and it has been revived and revived and revived ever since. But in the mid-1960s, all of that success came with a bit of a wrinkle, a tax bracket that was as high as 70 percent.

So at the urging of an accountant, Mr. Leigh started buying land; he chose Jackson Township. (He also owns a town house on East 68th Street in Manhattan and a house in France called “l’impossible rêve,” which means “the impossible dream.”) Over the years, he added to that Jackson parcel, bit by bit, as nearby land came up for sale, and today he owns nearly 1,000 acres, making him one of the largest landowners in the area. He has been working on plans to develop parts of the land for more than 20 years.

Sitting in his Manhattan office last week, in front of large picture windows on the 27th floor, Mr. Leigh said he did not expect to see Jackson Twenty-One finished in his lifetime — he will celebrate his 85th birthday at the end of the month with a big party put on by his wife, the artist Abby Leigh — but he does hope to see it started. Much of the infrastructure is in place, and Mr. Leigh says he hopes to break ground on some of the housing in the spring or summer.

According to Jackson Township, Mr. Leigh has so far been approved to develop 150 acres of his land, which may include retail, restaurants, housing and a hotel. But most of the plans remain far from solid. What the Web site displays are not formal offerings but architectural concepts and ideas under consideration, said Tom Bovino, manager of Mr. Leigh’s real estate company, Leigh Realty. They have yet to contract with builders. And even the ever-optimistic Mr. Leigh estimates it will take 25 years to complete the project.

Officials in Jackson Township, however, appear to have caught the optimism — and development — bug.

“He’s committed; he’s got the resources,” said Jose Torres, the municipal administrator of Jackson and a former mayor of Paterson. “This will put us in motion, I believe, and other people will jump aboard.”

Mr. Torres also proclaims himself a fan of the commercial. “It’s catchy!” he said. “Only if you’re nice, right?”

That is precisely what most distinguishes this development and its marketing, its least enforceable premise: all those nice people. There will be no Niceness Monitors or written tests, but Mr. Leigh says he hopes that by actively promoting a friendly atmosphere, by making a certain sweetness feel safe, then just maybe it will stick.

“I’m going to get cornball,” Mr. Leigh warned. “I think if you see that no one is going to laugh at you for it, I think the concept of living nicely will be infectious.”

“I believe there is room for the absence of cynicism,” he continued. “This is my final dream before I take the last cab.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: A Composer’s Dream: Housing for ‘Nice’ People. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe